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So a new peace treaty for Ukraine war just dropped .
Trump’s proposed Ukraine peace plan would recognize Crimea as Russian, accept Russian control over parts of Donbas and southern Ukraine, and offer Ukraine vague European security guarantees, unfettered access to Dnieper partial territorial returns, and U.S.-backed reconstruction. It also includes U.S. control of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant and a U.S.-Ukraine minerals deal. Vance said that the deal is final and in the case of rejection US will stop being a part of peacemaking process.
I think it's basically a great deal for both sides(I admit my bias cause for me any peace would be better than war). Ukraine loses nothing that it de facto has right now and gains territory in Kharkov, it can finally heal and maybe with some smart leadership, international investment and membership in EU it can rise to the heights of neighboring Poland, I doubt that it will and I already written on the motte why, but some chance is way better than no chance.
For Russia and specifically for Putin this is a way to claim victory after his many failures including starting this retarded SMO. Maybe for Russian state it would be better to deal with this close of an enemy once and for all, but it will not happen under current leadership and Putin is no nationalist, so even with total victory we would see semi puppet state in Ukraine that would break of as soon as possible. We are talking about person who still haven't annexed Belarus for christ sake.
I think kremlins are ready to accept this and even slightly worse versions of this deal, cause they already shown signs of it throught whole war, starting in March of 2022 and dictators are more likely to seek limited peace anyway. On the other hand Europe is actually putting some effort into its militarization, I'v seen news about new German ammunition facilities, and could collectively decide to continue the war even if US fully withdraws after rejecting the deal(which is in my opinion unlikely). That could prolong the conflict by another couple of years, probably lead to the Ukrainian territory gains but I can't see how it's worth the devastation that it would cause.
Well this is the rub really isn't it. For any deal to not be completely worthless to Ukraine, it surely needs some real guarantee against the re-invasion of whatever is left at some future date, which seems to be only provided either by NATO membership or the continuous presence of Western troops in Ukraine as a part of any 'security guarantee'.
I wouldn't completely discount the idea of a vague security guarantee as "useless." That's more or less what we have with Taiwan, and that's managed to keep the peace for over 50 years so far. Obviously Ukraine would want something more explicit, while Russia would prefer an explicit guarantee of independance/non-interference. But sometimes the only political viable compromise is a vague muddle.
It seems to me that this is effective because "Will American forces open fire on Chinese troops if they try to invade Taiwan?" is still an open question, and the possibility that the answer is "yes" has thus far been enough to deter invasion. However, "Will American forces open fire on Russian troops if they try to invade Ukraine?" has already been answered in the negative.
I don't look at it in terms of certainties, but in probabilities. It's not like a videogame where war is automatically declared when you declare on an ally- it's always subject to the whims of politicians and public sentiment.
So yes, this time, NATO countries chose to stay out of it, although they did provide massive amounts of material aid. I note the steady escalation as we went from financial and medical aid, to obsolete weapons, to eventually sending top-shelf military equipment. There's also been a divide in our politics, with Trump and the republicans being much more isolationist, while the Democrats want to get more involved. I could see a future where there's a cease-fire for a bit, a Democrat in the veign of LBJ gets elected, and the Republics flagrantly violate the cease-fire in a way that really pisses off the American public, like the Gulf of Tonkin incident.
Or it could go the other way. I have no idea! I don't think Putin does either. Just saying that he'd be a fool to completely ignore the US and assume he has carte-blanche to conquer all of non-affiliated Europe just because Biden and Trump chose not to get involved in this specific instance.
Of course, what I would really like to see is a massive build up of our munititions stockpiles, so that even if we don't get directly involved, we could just send enough shells and missiles to stop the invasion. it's embarrassing how badly we're getting outgunned by 50-year-old Soviet tech.
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